I’ve been “underground” for the past month, meaning not on my regular social media platform, Instagram. I’ve been deep in commission work over the past year, and it continues for 2021 thank goodness. I didn’t intend to fall off so hard, but it got to the point where the whole thing felt... I don’t know... there are so many voices, not bad voices per say, it just all seems like a rat race after a while.
I wanted to find purchase in the real, meaning, I took to my sketchbook, and to reading from books, and playing music... and I didn’t need to show the struggle, or feel pressure to produce for the feed. I have been seeking honesty with my work. Silence allows me to shut out all other influence, distraction, and focus on what I would like to say.
I tend to do this every year or so. I can hear, in my best Jim Gaffigan voice, “This guy’s in his own head all the TIME. What’s he doing in there?! It can’t be healthy!”
It’s definitely not healthy for my marketing buzz! And I know this... I tend to close myself off from a lot of things. It’s just that sometimes I think to myself, what is this all for? There are so many problems and conditions in the world today. We are basically in the second year of a global pandemic, things are politically tense here in the US, reality exists in a bubble around each individual, depending on where their social media algorithm takes them, with seemingly no facts on which we can all agree. I begin to feel as if we are on a runaway train... the pace of life, information, and a world in flux gets to weigh on me. I don’t want to make this a blog about politics or one world view over another.
What I do want to focus on is my remedy for these feelings. It has always been there for me throughout my life. Drawing and sketching. The idea of expression through the act of drawing, sharing your view with the world in a personal and immediate way. The sketch crosses barriers of language and culture. It can feel like magic. It is the most direct way to say “I am here! I see this! I feel this!”
My sketchbook is my therapist.